Note 836 — Chapter XI · THE BEGINNING OF WINTER

The depositio martyrum, attached to the Fasti of Philocalus drawn up in 354, opens with the entry ‘viii kl. ianu. natus Christus in Bethleem Iudeae.’ December 25 was therefore kept as the birthday at least as early as 353. Usener, i. 267, argued that the change must have taken place in this very year, because Liberius, while veiling Marcellina, the sister of St. Ambrose, on the Epiphany, spoke of the day as ‘natalem Sponsi tui’ (de Virginibus, iii. 1, in P. L. xvi. 219). But it is not proved either that this event took place in 363, or that it was on Epiphany rather than Christmas day. Liberius refers to the Marriage at Cana and the Feeding of the Five Thousand. But the first allusion is directly led up to by the sponsalia of Marcellina, and both events, although at a later date commemorated at Epiphany, may have belonged to Christmas at Rome, before Epiphany made its appearance (Duchesne, Bulletin critique (1890), 41). Usener adds that Liberius built the Basilica Liberii, also known as Sta. Maria ad Praesepe or Sta. Maria Maggiore, which is still a great station for the Christmas ceremonies, in honour of the new feast. But Duchesne shows that the dedication to St. Mary only dates from a rebuilding in the fifth century, that the praesepe cannot be traced there before the seventh, and that the original Christmas statio was at St. Peter’s.